Tag Archives: Northwestern Ontario

“The social economy, which places ‘people before profits’ arose from a failure of contemporary political and economic policies to provide minimum acceptable levels of economic and social wellbeing to people.”

Relocating social and ecological values in food systems

Tuesday March 14 at 11:00 a.m.

Join us for reports from four unique community-based research cases in Northern Ontario, where strengthening local food initiatives builds community purpose, identity and connectedness. Thus, challenging the accepted wisdom of externally-driven, profit-oriented economic primacy. All case studies have emerged as place-based and contextual.

Judi Vinni, Founder and Director of WSCC and Rachel Kagegamic, MSW student at Lakehead University

Willow Springs Creative Centre is a progressive social purpose enterprise that provides inclusive art, therapeutic gardening and food programs, services and training. They partner with professional artists, people trained in horticultural therapy and gardening, skilled cooks and bakers, and other talented facilitators. Their home base is nestled in the rural village of Lappe northwest of Thunder Bay, in the historical international Co-op built by local Finnish homesteaders in 1934.

Four key innovative local food related initiatives:

Soup and Artisan Bread initiative operates on a Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) model where customers pre-pay for their weekly subscription prepared by local students facing barriers to employment who participate in a training program to connect to and work with locally sourced food.

Harvest Share is an urban gleaning project where youth, staff and volunteers turn would-be-wasted fruit into preserves and other products such as cider and sauce for sale at the WSCC weekly market. Profits are used to support the soup and bread training program

Willow Springs’ Farmers Market provides access to a local market for Lappe-area producers. The market is a joyful meeting place that incorporates food, art activities and music.

Horticulture Therapy and Gardening works with a variety of partners such as schools, organizations service disabled community members, retirement and long-term care facilities to deliver therapeutic gardening programming.

Foraging as a Social Economy in Northern Ontario: A Case Study of Aroland First Nation, Arthur Schupp Wild Foods, Nipigon annual blueberry festival, and the Algoma Highlands blueberry farm.

Four contexts for foraging are presented to demonstrate distinct foraging practices that all contribute to building social capital, community resilience and innovative diversification of the economy.

The Aroland Youth Blueberry Initiative (AYBI) began in 2008, when community members decided to try and sell some of their surplus berries as a fundraising activity to help the youth. In Aroland berry picking is a way of life that can be traced back many generations.

Norma Fawcett, an elder of the Lake Helen Reserve, a part of the Red Rock Indian Band, had a vision of establishing a blueberry festival to celebrate and honour the blueberry. The idea was supported by the Nipigon Chamber of Commerce and plays a significant role in introducing people to how and where to pick blueberries, encourages awareness of a free, highly nutritious food source, boosted community connectedness and builds community pride in a locally available food source.

Arthuer Schupe is a second generation forager for local blueberries and mushrooms. His intergenerational knowledge of foraging has now branched into marketing fresh and dried morels, chanterelles and blueberries.

Algoma Highlands Wild Blueberry Farm, is a first in Northern Ontario. This farm is a natural, sustainable, low-bush wild blueberry farm located near Wawa, Ontario that produces quality fresh and processed blueberry products including jams, blueberry horseradish sauce and blueberry barbecue sauce.

Bearskin Lake First Nation

Rosemary McKay, Chief of Bearskin First Nation and Esther McKay, master’s student in the northern environment and cultural program, Lakehead University and a member of Bearskin Lake First Nation.

This case study explores both local food acquisition as a traditional practice for thousands of years and the challenges of food acquisition from a northern store and a local food co-op. Findings have demonstrated that social economy began as a way of life, not as an off-shoot of the mainstream industrial economy. Concepts of social economy and food sovereignty merge within this context. Identity is deeply embedded in the land which is the traditional giver of food.

Scaling out is sharing with the community; and scaling up is with other First Nations accessible by winter roads and air. Stewardship values are the driver, not market economy

Adaptation to traditional sharing is innovatively augmented with sharing within community through Facebook and penny auctions

Hunting and harvesting festivals enhance social capital and resilience by rebuilding knowledge and skills of traditional diets

‘Law of the land’ with in-depth feedback of local ecological system including humans is a distinctly separate paradigm from government policy and regulations of mainstream economy

Jen Springett, President of Cloverbelt Local Food Coop; Allison Streutker, Psychology student at Lakehead University

CLFC is a non-profit, multi-stakeholder co-op that creates food accessibility through an online farmers’ market with five pick-up locations. CLFC connects communities with local goods via distribution sites spanning 350 km across Northwestern Ontario. There are 130 producers serving 1000 plus members including two First Nations and local organizations that support local food.

Objectives

Increase visibility & accessibility of local foods available for purchase

To educate our community & surrounding areas about the benefits of eating locally

The agricultural food production sector is an important industry in Northwestern Ontario. One of the notable characteristics of the agricultural food production sector is that it provides residents with a range of local food options. There has been a growing demand of locally produced food over the last decade with increasing awareness of environmental, economic, and health implications of eating local food. The development of local food systems is a growing area of interest and is viewed as a logical strategy to improve community economic vitality.
The purpose of this report is to provide a detailed examination of the role played by the food production and processing sector on workforce multiplier effect in Northwestern Ontario. This includes an assessment of the indirect impacts of employment generated in the region. The study assesses the current state of food production, compares the changes in the state of food production between 2006 and 2011, explores the workforce multiplier effect of local food production throughout the economy, and provides a forecast of workforce multiplier effect of local food production for the next 5 years in each of the three districts (Thunder Bay, Rainy River and Kenora) of Northwestern Ontario. The report is intended to help the broader community better understand the nature and economic significance of the food production and processing in terms of jobs. The findings are also intended to inform program and policy development work within Northwestern Ontario.

Launch of the NWO FOODEX Crowdsourcing Contest!

We are launching a crowdsourcing contest and inviting submissions from high school, university and college students to design a local food distribution system for Northwestern Ontario – it is called NWO FoodEx.

Please see our website (foodinnovation.ca) which describes the contest and how it fits into the larger project. We also have a Facebook group, which provides a forum to ask questions, and a link to our handout which has the full details of the contest.

Rationale for the Contest

The research team includes Connie Nelson and Mirella Stroink from Lakehead University. We have been studying for the last few years the emergence of local food hubs in Northwestern Ontario. One of the realities is that the local producers and processors that are widely distributed from the Manitoba border to White River currently have no distribution network to assist them in marketing their local products across Northwestern Ontario. We need a more efficient and effective distribution system for local food in the region. Students can participate in solving a major issue for the local food movement in Northwestern Ontario!

Please Share Widely!

We are advertising the contest to secondary schools in Northwestern Ontario and to universities and colleges in Northern Ontario. We actually see this contest as applicable to many departments – Science, Geography, Environmental Science, Math, Computer Studies, and Food and Nutrition Science, etc. We would like it to be widely distributed to principals, teachers, and students.

Deadline for Submissions

The deadline for submissions is MAY 15, 2014. We encourage teachers and professors to incorporate the contest into assignments, projects and theses.

Questions

Questions about the contest can be directed to info@foodinnovation.ca, the Facebook group, or the Contact Us form on the website.